Live Rock & Fish Compatibility Questions

[Mekong]

If I use about ½ lava rock and ½ live rock in my tank, will the “live” spread to the lava rock? If so how long will it take?

If I use ½ live sand and ½ “dead” crushed coral, will the “live” spread across the sand?

I am going to be setting up an 80 gallon puffer fish tank.
1 Green Spotted Puffer
1 Takifugu Niphobles Puffer
and hopefully I will be able to add some marine fish that are aggressive enough to stand up against the GSP. Can anyone recommend any slightly aggressive fish around 6” that might be compatible? I head the tomato clown might work.

I think my puffers will pick at the “live” parts of the live rock, so it seems like some of it will be an expensive meal. Will there be enough stuff on the live rock to make it worth while to buy?

I plan on using a AquaC Remora Skimmer and Emperor 400 filter. Hopefully ill have cash left over for power compact lights or something affordable. I might be stuck using shop lights or standard out-put bulbs for a while. How much lighting would be adequate for this set-up.

Any suggestions?

[Poseidon]

Hey Mekong,

Sounds like a plan. The "live" in the rock is actually a filter. The added bonus is the other things that come along with it, coralline algae, sometimes you get small polyps and other "creatures" like crabs and Mantis shrimp. Your puffers will absolutely love those morsels!!!

As far as the sand goes yes the live will spread all over the place, but the rock well it may get some growth on it and eventually will even hold some bacteria but it will still be lava rock You may want to consider using that as a base or platform to build the live rock up, then the lava is mostly hidden and the "pretty" rock is on top ;)

[the_blue_tuna]

You may want to also rethink your using lava rock all together. Lava rocks "can" contain heavy metals and minerals that will slowly , over time , leach into the tank and cause problems. A better choice would be tufa rock . It is a dead rock that can be had for a fair price( I have seen it for $1 per pound) and does not contain the stuff that lava rock can. No matter which you choose , in the end the bacteria will populate whatever you put in the tank.